A Review on Experimental Study of Wind Turbine Blade Lightning Protection System

Different types of lightning protection system (LPS) are being used for wind turbine blades (WTBs). However, still severe damages due to lightning strikes still happen frequently, which costs huge losses. In this paper, a review on experimental study of WTB lightning protection is given. Experiments were performed to study the lightning attachment characteristics of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GFRP) composite wind turbine blade. Experiments using three specimens of WTB the effect of wind turbine blade orientation, lateral distances (LDs) between the wind turbine blade and the lightning downward leader, polarity of lightning strike, wind turbine blade rotation speed, receptor type and marine environment on lightning interception failure of LPS in different situation were studied. It was observed that discharge attachment paths under positive and negative lightning strikes were quite different, and the positive discharges are much more dangerous to wind turbine blade than the negative ones. The LD between downward leader and WTB is a key factor which influences the interception efficiency. The experiment results can be useful to improve the optimal design of LPS of WTBs.